Political scientist and media critic

August 23, 2011

Peggy Noonan reads Obama's mind

Even when presidents get in trouble, we rarely see evidence of the strain they probably feel, creating a void at the center of the dramatic narrative that the media wants to sell. That's why journalists and pundits so often rush to fill the void with faux mind-reading and silly interpretations of presidential body language.

Consider Peggy Noonan's latest Wall Street Journal column, which centers on speculation about President Obama's mental state. (I've therefore annotated it with swami graphics, which I am hoping the Journal and others will adopt as a visual aid for readers.)

The frame of the article is that the economy and Obama's presidency have reached "new lows." By the second paragraph, Noonan has already constructed an entirely fictional dramatic scene complete with a fake movie-style quote from Obama ("If they want this job so much let them have it"):

The market is dispirited. I'm wondering if the president is, too, and if that won't carry implications for the 2012 race. You can imagine him having lunch with political advisers, hearing some unwanted advice—"Don't go to Martha's Vineyard!"—putting his napkin by his plate, pushing back from the table, rising, and saying in a clipped, well-modulated voice: "I'm tired. I'm going. If they want this job so much let them have it."

She then moves on to speculating about Obama being "depressed" and "full of doubts":

How could he not be depressed? He has made big mistakes since the beginning of his presidency and has been pounded since the beginning of his presidency. He's got to be full of doubts at this point about what to do. His baseline political assumptions have proved incorrect, his calculations have turned out to be erroneous, his big decisions have turned to dust. He thought they'd love him for health care, that it was a down payment on greatness. But the left sees it as a sellout, the center as a vaguely threatening mess, the right as a rallying cry. He thought the stimulus would turn the economy around. It didn't. He thought there would be a natural bounce-back a year ago, with "Recovery Summer." There wasn't. He thought a toe-to-toe, eyeball-to-eyeball struggle over the debt ceiling would enhance his reputation. The public would see through to the dark heart of Republican hackery and come to recognize the higher wisdom of his approach. That didn't happen either.

Next, Noonan purports to discern his "inner rationale for not coming up with a specific debt-ceiling plan":

The president shows all the signs of becoming a man who, around the time he unveils his new jobs proposal in September, is going to start musing in interviews about whether anyone can be a successful president now, what with the complexity of the problems and the forces immediately arrayed, in a politically polarized age, against any specific action. That was probably his inner rationale for not coming up with a specific debt-ceiling plan: Why give the inevitable forces a target?

She then analyzes Obama's body language during his Midwest bus tour and purports to discern that he was "observing himself and his interactions":

Under these circumstances he could not possibly be enjoying his job. On the stump this week in the Midwest, he should have been on fire with the joy of combat... But even at his feistiest, he was wilted. Distracted. Sometimes he seems to be observing himself and his interactions as opposed to being himself and having interactions.

Why did Obama decide to vacation in Martha's Vineyard? Noonan looks into the President's mind to give us some answers:

Mr. Obama's media specialists probably told him what Bill Clinton's mavens told him: If you're going to the Vineyard, you have to go to some real American place first, like the Rockies. Which Mr. Clinton did. Going to the Vineyard didn't harm him. But Mr. Clinton had prosperity...

Mr. Obama doesn't have that advantage. It seems important to him to be true to himself -- not to be the kind of person who'd poll-test a vacation. Or maybe he thinks that no matter what he does, it won't work, so what the heck. But his decision to go now, and there, seems either ham-handed or vaguely defiant.

Finally, the column closes with speculation on Obama's feelings about possibly being a one-term president:

In early 2010 this space made much of the president's pre-State of the Union interview with Diane Sawyer, in which she pressed the president about his political predicaments. He said: "I'd rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president." I thought at the time: He means it, he can accept being a one-termer.

Maybe he's feeling it now more than ever.

Maybe it means not much will change in terms of his leadership between now and the election.

Maybe he'll be as wilted next year as he was this week.

(Memo to columnists: When your column ends with three sentences starting with "Maybe," you haven't said anything.)

In short, the entire column is built on mind-reading -- I had to excerpt half of it just to collect all the examples. It's a great example of how the novelization of the presidency works. Like Maureen Dowd, Noonan's talent for making up pleasing stories about political figures have made her a highly regarded pundit for one of the nation's top newspapers. Too bad those stories are largely fiction.

Comments

I agree with Brendan that Noona's mind-reading is largely fiction, but there is one difference between Dowd and Noonan. Noonan acknowledges that she's speculating, using phrases like "I'm wondering", "probably", "maybe", and "how could he not". OTOH Dowd often presents her mind-readind as fact, e.g. "he is frantic" or "McCain really doesn't like Obama".

In theory, Democrats should be nervous about Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s decision to enter the presidential race. In practice, though, it’s Republicans who have zoomed up the anxiety ladder into freak-out mode.

In this column, Robinson says Perry holds "radical loony views" because Perry called Social Security a "Ponzi scheme". Of course, SS is a Ponzi scheme. That is, it's essentially pay-as-you-go. Benefits to retirees are paid from current workers' FICA assessments. A true pension plan would save the assessments on today's workers and eventually use that money (plus accumulated interest) to pay benefits to today's workers after they retire.

California David doesn't seem to recognize that the fundamental aspect of a ponzi scheme is an intentional pyramidal structure. Demographics change over time but there is no purposeful funneling of more and more money to fewer and fewer people.

And Robinson is correct to say that Perry has "radical, loony ideas" because of what Perry says, not what Perry thinks. Saying that Fed policy that has been going on for decades under Dem and Rep Presidents is treasonous is unarguably loony. You don't have to be a mind reader to know that.

I almost burst out laughing when I read these excerpts from Noonan's column. Seems to me that Obama has numerous reasons to feel successful and optimistic.

He's governing exactly the way he said he would and his continued commitment to "crossing the aisle" just keeps highlighting how extreme the Republican Party has become. His approval ratings are higher than even Saint Reagan's at a similar point in his presidency. Tens of millions of voters "get" that he has acted intelligently and in good faith for the good of the nation and has done fantastically given the situation he inherited plus the complete animus of most Republicans.

Is he satisfied? I suspect not. Is he happy? Maybe with his family, but messes abound everywhere else. But is he despondent? Depressed? Beaten down and ready to give up? Oh puh-leeze. The picture that Noonan paints just strikes me as nothing more than the hopeful fantasy of someone who wants to see him fail.

I just wonder what Republicans would be saying and
doing if Obama had lost the popular vote in 08
and relied on the Supreme Court to install him
as president? Whenever I ask this question I
usually get a response that has nothing to do with
the question. That this is the main reason why people
questioned the legitimacy of the Bush presidency.

No one wants to or is even capable of imagining what
would be going on in the Republican reality distortion
machine or in Peggy Noonan's mind under such circumstances.

The main reason why Republicans question the
legitimacy of the Obama Presidency is b/c he has the
nerve not to be republican. If certain words are repeated
again and again (in a Jon Stewart compilation) the American people will come to see the wisdom behind the Republican manufactured reality.

Yes, I saw the picture of Obama and Michelle in a
lobby while on vacation. The lighting seemed to
conspire to captured a moment of "dispirited depression"
in the face of Obama. Such moments, true or not, bring
sparks of inspiration and illumination into the minds
of Republican journalists as they gaze into a bright
future filled with "real" Americans like Rick Perry
as VP to that square jawed Mitt Romney. My my my.

Whenever I have doubts about Obama all I have to
do is consider the alternative and which party was
in office when 700,000 jobs were being lost in 08
and which party was in office during the previous
economic crisis when we had to bail out 2000
banks and S&L's in 1989?

I know, stop thinking those nasty thoughts b/c
that was a total coincidence and just not true
b/c it can't be true. What would Peggy say?